The first settlers between what are now Raworth and the Central Business District were assailed by two floods in 1819, only months after taking up their allotments. Then a big one struck in 1820. Every holding was affected. Simple dwellings were probably destroyed and crops, livestock, sheds and fences lost. Thereafter, farm operations were frequently afflicted by floods.

As the town of Maitland grew, more people and enterprises felt the problems brought by inundation. It took some time for efforts to control floods to take root. There were proposals in the 1830s for canals to speed the drainage of floodwaters past Maitland, and for an embankment to circle the growing town to keep floods out.

But in Maitland's early years the priorities of the colonial government were elsewhere, funds were scant and there were no councils to carry out 'flood mitigation'. The main concern of large estate owners was to clear the floodplains of forest and drain lakes and swamps.

They were making farmland rather than protecting crops, livestock and productivity. Activity to control floods had to wait. As more people were affected, more consideration was given to managing floods. From the 1850s, drainage and embankment-building initiatives began to take shape.

The first embankment whose origin can be precisely dated was built in 1857 to block off Halls Creek (north of today's Mount Pleasant St): this creek drained Oakhampton rainwater to the river but during floods it took water from the river and inundated farmland. Using wheelbarrows and shovels, local farmers blocked the creek off with a dam. They also built a wood-lined 'tunnel' (culvert) through the 'dam' (levee) so that water could drain to the river both when it was not in flood and as flood levels fell. The frequency of inundation was reduced where such embankments were built. Others were constructed at O'Briens, upstream of Halls Creek, and along the Paterson River in the Woodville area. Drains were cut at Scobies (Bolwarra) and Loch End south of East Maitland. Such initiatives were adjuncts of the major swamp and lake-draining efforts that created land for farms in the 1820s and 30s.

Lake Paterson (between Woodville and Wallalong) and Lake Lachlan (Louth Park) were transformed from permanent wetlands to productive farmland - the same happened at Phoenix Park. Embankments helped keep floodwaters at bay and the drains sped the return of the land to farming purposes after inundation. Thus the periods in which farmland was productive were lengthened.

By the late 1860s, farmer-based 'embankment committees' were proliferating and the West Maitland Council was raising low points in the river's banks behind High St to protect the town. Flood mitigation had become a significant activity in the Maitland area.